A Bradford solicitor is suing his GP for substantial damages after he claims she failed to spot he was in agony with appendicitis.

Father-of-four Andrew Walker told a Court he was left coughing up blood and had to be rushed to hospital after his inflamed appendix burst and he ended up suffering a blood clot and hernia.

Now he is suing his GP Dr Mary Cuthbert of the Westcliffe Medical Centre in Shipley for negligence claiming "substantial damages" for his pain and suffering.

Bradford County Court heard he had not worked for 18 months after suffering clinical depression.

Mr Walker, from Cottingley, said he saw three different GPs in a four-day period in 1993 and had various tests - but it was only on the fourth day that he was sent to hospital as an emergency case.

By then his inflamed appendix had burst and he was vomiting blood.

After his emergency surgery he had suffered complications including a pulmonary embolism - a blood clot - and a hernia as well as psychological problems over an 18 month period and clinical depression.

His damages claim includes £9,000 for loss of earnings, £1,500 for DIY work on his house and payment for 18 months of stress and clinical depression.

He claims that Dr Cuthbert should have acted sooner to get him admitted to hospital - either on Tuesday, May 11, when she examined him, or Wednesday, May 12, when he had an x-ray at Shipley Hospital.

In fact it was Thursday, May 13 - when his condition had become very severe - when he was rushed into hospital on Dr Cuthbert's instructions, Bradford County Court heard.

"By the time he was admitted to hospital, Mr Walker had been suffering his symptoms for well over 100 hours," said David Wilby QC, for the claimant.

Dr Cuthbert had visited the patient at home on the Tuesday, when he had already been in severe pain for 48 hours.

The court heard she suspected a kidney stone because of the place he complained the pain was coming from. She prescribed strong painkillers and left after 15 minutes, later noting in his case file that the patient was "still in agony".

The court was told that Mr Walker was not known for wasting doctors' time and had only visited a GP twice in the preceding 20 years.

Despite his pain he trusted the medical advice he had received, which was that he probably had a kidney stone which was likely to pass through his system in time, solving the problem.

"I was in absolute agony for the whole of the week, confined to a settee in the living room," Mr Walker said.

"I can remember vomiting a black liquid that looked like liquid tar into a bowl, I had never seen anything like it."

Cross examining Dr Cuthbert, Mr Wilby asked: "What is the condition your patients have to be in before you refer them to hospital?

"You just didn't apply your mind properly to the nature and extent of this patient's condition on May 11."

Dr Cuthbert, who became a partner at Westcliffe Medical Centre in 1983, admitted: "I did get it wrong, yes, but I was acting in what I believed to be the patient's best interests at the time. I felt I could do some investigations as an outpatient with minimum inconvenience to the patient's family, or himself."

She said hospitals would be overloaded if everyone suffering pain, fainting and vomiting was admitted.

The hearing continues.

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